Like the playset item, “Swing” has its ups and downs as it explores the relationship between Cathy and Dan. Surprisingly, there isn’t a sex swing involved. Take that as your NSFW Warning .
Written by Matt Hawkins and Jenni Cheung
Illustrated, Colored, Lettered by Linda Sejic
Spinning off from the universe of SUNSTONE comes a slice-of-life romantic story about a couple trying to regain the sexual energy from the beginning of their relationship by swinging with other couples. An emotional journey of two people fighting to stay in love.
Expanding the Sejic-verse, the umbrella collecting Stjepan and Linda Sejic’s series “Sunstone” and “Blood Stain” respectively, with a title that isn’t written by them – Linda Sejic does provide art – sounded potentially fraught. It was an understandable move for Top Cow President and “Swing” co-writer Matt Hawkins, who wrote the book with his wife Jennie Cheung, “Sunstone” is the best selling collection for the Image imprint in company history. Early trepidation aside, the first volume of “Swing” is a fitting addition to the verse as it tackles similar motifs of relationships, sexuality, and communication in a character driven and sex positive manner, from a different perspective. “Swing” focuses on Cathy and her husband Dan as they begin to explore the swinging lifestyle as a means to reignite the physical spark in their relationship.
I say “begin” because that’s what this 80 page graphic novel is, a beginning. There is a fair amount of sex, nudity (including male full frontal) and a humorous trip to the local swingers club, but the mode of “Swing” is a character and relationship drama first erotica second. This is why spending the first 20 or so pages on Cathy and Dan’s whirlwind college romance is a smart move as the story shifts to the married couple now approaching their thirties in the suburbs. That opening chapter builds an appropriate context for developing Cathy’s desire for a more fulfilling sex life that drives everything forward. Keeping with the lines sex positive nature, the creative team never look down at Cathy’s desires. The ways in which she goes about fulfilling them may not always be the text book definition of The Best, but that’s drama. Neither does the creative team look down on Dan, the straight man of this stories comedy. He maybe the straight man, but his anxieties about what this could mean are given voice and respect. While the use of inner monologue lacks the reflexive charm found in “Sunstone,” it’s still an efficient and effective way to characterize and give voice to the main couple and highlight their own communication problems. If a bit heavy handed at times.
The use of internal monologue helps the comic represent and recognize their own culpability in their lack of passion and how it wasn’t a malicious act by either of them, routine and responsibility of being parents happened. In one of the few double page spreads, Linda Sejic maps out their daily routine as Dan teaches English and takes care of the children while Cathy is stuck in traffic working at a film marketing company. Each panel locates them in time but shows how they’ve become two ships passing in the night physically, life happened. “Swing” features some beautiful erotic moments, but Linda’s best work is in these early pages. Her emotive facial designs help to dimensionalize and lessen some of the thuddier moments of narration. After an experience at the club goes sideways, the fallout panel pulls out to capture everyone at a fairly steep, removed, high angle perspective. It works because of how well Linda captures everyone’s various expressions in just a few lines for their eyes. Cathy is giving Dan a death glare even Matt Murdoch could see, another couple is in unison giving the bummed side-eye, and a male partner is very angry as he checks on his female partner.
Writing “Swing” is a bit of a departure for Matt Hawkins, who is more normally seen in the pages of Crichton-esque science fiction stories like “Think Tank.” This is Jenni Cheung’s first credited work, her second will be another erotic relationship graphic novel, “Sugar.” due out next month. In his column in the back, Hawkins is upfront about “Swing” being a collaborative piece between him, Cheung, and both the Sejics. Judging by various interviews, it seems like he did a most of the writing. By which I mean formatting everything and for simplicity sake, I’m going off that assumption. I don’t have any track record to draw on for Cheung. Linda is an excellent writer in “Blood Stain,” but going off her DeviantArt posting for “Swing,” she seemed focused on getting pages done. All of these caveats are meant to both recognize the collaborative nature of comics production, and say this among the best dialog I’ve read from Hawkins. His dialog has had a tendency to ring with a bit of a tin ear at times when paired with the art. In “Swing” the dialog reads and flows naturally because it feels more in sync with the artwork. There are some moments where the writing has the subtly of a sledgehammer, is there a subtler way to say “I’ll take you in the back and suck your cock”? However, because of Sejic’s expressive art the line, panel overall, and following panel play because of the shocked-aroused-confused look on Dan’s face.
Continued belowThis being erotica, there is a fair amount of sex. Since this is about Cathy owning and trying to fulfil her desires, the creative team also have to go about distinguishing satisfying and unsatisfying experiences. One of the core motifs representing satisfaction is framing panels and pages with glowing roses. Which is fine, and fits into some of the design elements of the book playing into heteronormative symbolism that I’m not too sure about. Partly due to my own skepticism at assured concrete symbolism in general, and how it plays into idealized, clean, representation of sex and eschews some of the thornier human aspects. The use of these symbols makes sense for the story in this volume, but there is hopefully a reckoning coming as Cathy and Dan explore this more and have time to think with their other heads.
There is also a smarter, subtler, and more comic book way Sejic’s art helps to distinguish the two by playing with the nature of sequential art. In an unsatisfying sequence early on, despite early hopeful signs, it all falls apart. The gutters between panels become more pronounced and the figures of Cathy and Dan become, ironically, disconnected from one another in this moment of union. The page design itself is fine, it’s setup to have a disrupted flow which matches the intent of the scene in representing how both partners are out of step with each other. The disparity between satisfying and unsatisfying shines brighter when things do go off for the couple in a double page sequence later on. The layouts spread guides the readers eye like an opening fan, smoothly going from right to left. The spread is cut into 6 panels, but there is no gutter space between them. Cathy and Dan are consistently figured together, either by their figures overflowing from the panels or how tightly the pages overall flows together. Even in other sequences that don’t have the same amount of real estate the sequential flow therein tells the reader all they need to know if things are in sync or not.
“Swing” offers some interesting possibilities in the first volume and going forward. Much of the setup reminds me of a little seen poly romantic comedy television series You Me Her. To be clear, “Swing” isn’t about the initiation of a polyamorous relationship, but with multiple partners in each lifestyle there are similar dramatic energy and anxieties at play. There is also the fact that this is a romance series focused on married thirtysomething parents. In classic rom com tradition the story ends with marriage not pick up a decade later. When these stories do focus on married couples, they tend to be in the senior variety, Hope Springs comes to mind. The closest recent analog in terms of age is something like This is Forty or maybe Date Night. There is a novelty to the anonymous normalcy of Cathy and Dan are associated with.
Allowing Linda Sejic to syndicate “Swing” on her alternative DeviantArt page(NSFW warning) was smart promotional move and one that created differing reading conditions. Other than the censoring of male genitalia (lame) and the lack of chapter breaks, the content is the same. The page every three days format created for an interesting reading experience to contrast with reading the OGN as a whole. Reading on the web, felt like it exposed some of the efficient plotting and page space more. Reading it again in one go compressed these aspects. Both cases left me with the slight feeling that things got a bit overly comics compressed towards the end as the page budget was running up. For the story it’s telling in this volume, it ends in the right space. Cathy achieves her goal, while the communicative hurdles between her and Dan still remain to create juicy drama in the subsequent volumes.
As an overall package, “Swing” feels complete at roughly $8 for 122 pages. The whole package gives you an 80 page story, but it’s the wrappers around it that gave it a little something extra. Before the graphic content begins, you are given an anonymous testimonial from a couple in the lifestyle describing a hard swap experience. Matt Hawkins brings his typical research porn end column. These two features feel human and empathic, like a group of people attempting to de-exoticize this facet of sexuality from tawdry titillation it’s often associated with.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – “Swing” is an interesting addition and solid start to the series, presenting an humanist look at an expanding area of sexuality.
